Licensed To Affirm: Resilience & Soul Strength in a Pressure-Filled Age, 3rd. Edition: Licensed, #1

By Alexia Antoine

WHAT IF GETTING ON TRACK TO PURPOSE IS AS SIMPLE AS LEARNING HOW TO DIRECT YOUR SOUL, AND BRAIN TOWARD HEALING, AND GREATNESS? WHAT IF YOU COULD DIRECT PORTIONS OF YOUR LIFE THROUGH WRITING?

 

Licensed to Affirm, 3rd Edition is written in a roundtable, strategist style to train and mobilize high-achieving self-starters, (and those aspiring to become such), with visions for their lives and the world, to affirm the soul that feels a magnetic pull toward "greater", but needs guidance in getting there. With a name that means "Defender of Mankind", Alexia Antoine knows all about the frustration that comes from having an unbearable pull to do and achieve, but no idea of where to apply this motivation. This updated edition of the first installment in the Upward Anchor Licensed series includes a Resources table, complete with a Playlist to accompany you on your Personal Development Journey.

 

 

MIND-SHARPENING CHAPTERS INCLUDE:

 

Defeat the Self-Spectation Troll, which helps you break free of deeply-ingrained self-defeating habits, then helps you repair your emotions by learning how to clear out, then rest your soul

The Wisdom Day Rule, to gain stackable insights from everyday life for wisdom beyond your years

Brain-Rewiring Affirmations, Alexia's unique brand affirmations that uses neuroscience to become laser-focused, and distraction-resilient, while actualizing your targeted goals

Disruptor DNA, a powerful level of influence your reach once on the path to Purpose, where your arrive at your assigned place in the earth and unlock the influence that awaits your unique DNA

 

You'll walk away from this paradigm-shifting book with powerful insights, strategies, tools, and clarity to pursue the unique Purpose Blueprint assigned to your life.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upward Anchor
• Release date: Dec 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215992852

Alexia Antoine

Alexia Antoine is a Licensed Professional Counselor called to sharpen the self-starter and to sharpen and empower through her brand Anchor Therapy & Personal Development, PLLC. On Instagram she can be found as upward_anchor, @AlexiaAntoineWriter on Facebook, and as @UpwardAnchor on Twitter.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This third edition of Licensed to Affirm is an updated roundtable meeting of minds. Truth be told, we’re in the wake of a new era, one with a whole new playbook. That’s why we need this discussion we’re having, plus the questions it will inevitably raise. To that I say, ask away! The world is full of voices anyway; we need yours in the mix. There’s something promising about this season we’re in all over the world. The earth has long awaited great change for the better. Earth is in expectant mode and is travailing like never before. Why a third edition? I recognize that if changes are on the horizon for me, they must be for you as well. Chances are, like me, you’ve had big things on the brain, and they just won’t leave you alone. You may be going through or may have recently come through an unseen warfare unlike any other time in your life. So, you can say this is perspective from the other side of predictability. If we can call this edition of Licensed to Affirm anything, we can call it the Thriving-Times-Three Edition. That is our aim, after all. Not just thriving for personal gain, but so we can be settled enough to be an answer on a grander scale. I still am and will forever be, of course, about clarity. In this third edition, you’ll find all the updates from the second edition, including the mission points under the section The (New) Wild Adventure that Lies Ahead. This section is still designed to cause whatever dormant Vision or Mission you’re carrying to leap to the forefront of your mind and soul. Ever since I first wrote it, this section has been particularly helpful for me whenever analysis paralysis comes knocking. For the third edition, you’ll also find more in-depth discussion on wisely applying Scripture, revelation from the things you normally gloss over, gaining direction after a long silence, and further identity development. Your girl has been pondering, praying, reading, and documenting! While the world is still divided and people are given over to their own interest at the expense of others, let those of us who have the wisdom finalize our determination to establish the Vision in this season. Time is still of the essence.

CHAPTER 1: Creating A New Formula

Four in the morning , and I’m wide awake. I’m scribbling away with gusto in my corded, silver leather journal. The thoughts just keep coming to me, and for good reason. I’ve fought to get here, where my thoughts are working for me and not against me. Sometimes I’m writing instructions or encouragement I’ve received from the Lord; other times, I’m just willing myself to assume a winning posture and mindset. As many problems as I can see or imagine, they’re all repurposed into rocket fuel in word form.  Affirmations have existed long before I started using them. That’s just a fact. But like anything I put my hand to, I’ve made it my own and made it significantly better and more impactful. Affirmations are meant to be catalysts to use dormant strength, so I’ve found relief in the vivid detail Affirmation writing calls for. It’s given me freedom to determine what I deserve based on the height of my expectation, not what I immediately see in my environment. So, as my ten-year-long depression neared a wrap, Affirmation writing became like my back-up oxygen supply. 

Today, after strengthening my faith and finding my voice, I’ve learned how to say no, how to negotiate, how to lead myself and others, how to do my due diligence and research, and how to ask for what I need and want. I’ve managed to choose between three pivotal courses of action, by prioritizing my focus according to urgency and Calling. From leaving the most secure and supportive job and team of bosses I’ve ever had, to creating my own career, schedule, and life, there has been a lot of calculated risk taking, gut verifying and trust involved. Exhilarating as that has been, I’m just getting started. Affirmations have gotten me through three of the most pounding years of my life and have doubled as an offramp from the decade-long depression highway. Without a counselor of my own to go to, Affirmations — my own brand of them in particular, that I call Rocket-Fueled Affirmations (RFA’s) — have served as my sounding board and reflection. The pages are functional feedback and progress measurement. It feels amazing to have read several pages each day, only to come back and be able to swipe my hand across half the page of checkboxes that line the left side of my RFA’s signifying that they have become my reality (as has happened for me before)!

At that point, something amazing happened. I began to believe what I wrote! I wrote things like I have a fully-paid-off car when I still had to walk, carpool or take public transportation! This Affirmation later came true, when a colleague connected me with a car dealer who wanted to bless me by only charging me five thousand dollars for a used, zippy little gray sedan. I paid it off in three cash payments and got my first car title! The metallic gray Godsend took me everywhere I needed to go and was fuel-efficient. Needless to say, I was officially reinforced by this Affirmations thing! To finally own something large that could help me go places in the literal and figurative sense was oxygen to my self-esteem and life outlook. My new-old sedan was transportation and my ticket to a broader life, as it helped me get to places to try new foods and go to new places in the city. I began to get my feet under me as my salary climbed and my workplace confidence grew. I was adulting ― at least a little ― for the first time! Yet I was still terrified, and felt as if it could all be ripped out from under me at any moment. Then again, I wasn’t exactly stable. Still, victory felt really good. This was my boost to put more skin in the Affirmations game, and I began to play bigger, demand more, and dream crazier since I had lived the possibilities first-hand. I saw what having guts could do when backed by strategic writing, and then meditated on those writings regularly, if not daily. I knew then that everything else was already mine.

The Renewed Mind

Remember the viral internet video of the precious hamster that ran full force on its wheel for sport, and got its paw caught? The dear creature must have made four merciless rotations in that position. Been there, in essence. Years ago I experienced a two-year-span pattern where I ran into job instability due to businesses having either department-wide hour reductions, federal issues, or indefinite shutdowns. Each time, I was thrown into disrepair and lost my bearings all over again. Then I decided to try something different. I was 27 and had just been laid off the best job I’d held at that point, Program Counselor in a psychiatrist’s office. I was in a new city I had never before explored, and I got to sit across the table from a psychiatrist, discuss research, and go to trainings! It all went away the afternoon I was called into the office by personnel the owner brought in for restructuring. On top of that, as I sat in front of him, this person informed me that a male colleague recommended that I be let go over him, despite my quality of work. Perhaps worse was the fact that the forty-something-year-old brother seemed a little too eager and fond of the task at hand. At the time, I didn’t know how to increase the volume of Psychiatry patients I recruited to the Counseling Program. Just like that, I was jobless. I was back at ground-zero; only, that time was different. I made it different, starting that afternoon in the parking lot, as I gazed out my windshield. I won’t lie; I wasn’t thinking anything revolutionary at that moment. I wondered what I would tell my mother, whom I was still depending on for housing at age twenty-seven. Yet, in less than fifteen minutes I determined for the first time ever that I was going to approach matters from an adventurous perspective. Oh don’t get me wrong, I was terrified. Losing a job before you feel ready to is an awful feeling. But in that moment, it was somewhat a relief not to have to show up to an office anymore for the time being. By then, I had gotten just the beginning glimpses of what I was capable of. I was living at home, yes. I was still getting substantial financial help from my own mother, old as I was, yes, but I knew I could do better than that. So, that same day, I drove the Plano, TX streets to the Barnes and Noble a few miles away from the office. I posted up on a rolling stool in the business section and before I knew it, four hours had passed. I was on a search for ideas and fellow trailblazers who were skilled at turning lemons into lemonade. What I was looking for? I didn’t know. I just knew I was looking for something I could apply my intuitive mindset to and that I could pore over strategically to create my own solution, so I could never be laid off again. Yes, I was in search of my own business. My search didn’t last long; to a bookworm, four hours in Barnes and Noble scrunched up under a pile of books on a rolling stool is nothing. I spent those four hours voraciously evaluating six books, with three simultaneously open and piled atop each other on my lap. I loved every moment of it, and was feeling empowered already. Out of the six titles, four made the cut and I headed to the Checkout line. My haul included a guidebook on business taxes, starting and running a business, and the final two on financial strategy. I could have easily whipped up a library reserve list for some of those, but it wouldn’t have cost me anything. I knew for that fact alone, that I wouldn’t have taken it seriously enough, let alone had any skin in the game. For where I was in